-The Crawler-
On the day the world crumbled, many grotesque creatures crawled up from the forgotten depths of the earth, eager to explore their newfound freedom. One such ancient aberration was the Crawler. Although they are technically worms, their gigantic size lends them a distinctly snake-like appearance. Only their slimy skin, stubby feet, and blind, questing feelers remind us of their true caterpillar-like nature. But what place does nature have when speaking of these abominations?
Poison-covered skin, acid blood, lethal bite, and a bottomless appetite are the hallmarks of the Crawler. An uninformed traveler might look at these things as overgrown pests, to be squashed like the bugs that they are. And it is true that their soft, invertebrate bodies can be smashed with the stomp of a well-placed boot. But to do so is to court a very quick and unpleasant death. Even if you manage to sneak up on one and squash it, you will be surprised to find both your boot and foot missing in a few moments. Their blood, somehow contained within the sac of sickly-green skin that is their body, is highly corrosive and will eat through almost any material as easily as the Crawlers themselves. Only the sturdiest of metals, such as mythril and crystal ore, can safely survive an encounter with Crawler blood.
Of course, the worm's innards are only a problem for those brave and hardy enough to survive an encounter with a living Crawler long enough to draw blood. For far too many, attacks comes from behind and below, the Crawler hidden from their eyes until the moment of death. Just as they silently crawled from their subterranean world on the day of the Collapse, so they continue to hide beneath the surface until ready to strike. The method by which a Crawler hides is a still a mystery to this day, as is the way it lives its life when not preying on its victims. Even the best hunters such as myself can not detect a Crawler until it decides to reveal itself. And by then, it is usually too late to do more than fight for survival.
It is for this reason, combined with the fact that their own acid blood eats away at their corpses until nothing is left, that even after a decade of research, I know little more about these ravenous vermin than I did on the day I first encountered them. What is known is little, and much comes from ancient analects, but every fact is important if we are to combat their threat. And they are a very real threat.
The Crawlers inhabit many different regions of the world, from the southern continent of Jidoor to the northern wastelands of Narshe and the island of Doma. It is my suspicion that they appear on such a large area of our planet, far more than any other creature, due to their subterranean lifestyle. These beasts surely survived just beneath our once-peaceful land in interconnected tunnels that formed a network stretching across our planet like a web. When this web was disturbed by the Collapse and exposed by the countless cracks and fissures of that day, the Crawlers swarmed out in countless numbers like a hive of angry hornets, eager and hungry for new kinds of flesh to devour.
This theory is supported by the fact that Crawler-like monsters have been observed deep underground, in the lost catacombs of Karnak between Figaro and Kohlingen. Called Figaro Lizards, or more colloquially, Figaliz, by the scholars of Figaro Castle, they are much like the Crawlers above ground, both in their serpent-like appearance and love of flesh. As dangerous as the regular Crawler is, these deviants are even more brutal, and their skin is strangely resistant to magic, as I have had the unfortunate experience to discover. It is this powerful barrier against magic that leads me to believe the Figaro Lizards themselves are not natural creatures, but genetic experiments gone feral in the absence of their Magi overlords.
With the help of the Figaro Castle scholars, as well as the records left by the people of Karnak, much has been learned about the Figaro Lizards that I believe can also be applied to Crawlers. As I mentioned, the Figaliz's, to use the local name, strange magic-resisting properties imply a human hand in their genesis. Records from Karnak suggest they were used for surprise attacks against oncoming Magi, and even Espers. Their magical defense would have aided them quite handily against an unprepared mage or Esper, and their acid blood I suspect could even eat through a soldier-class Esper's skin, to say nothing of the tender human flesh of a Magi. A fact that lends credence to my theory is that most of the other unusual monsters that live in the Karnak catacombs are also resistant to magical attack, as were some of the lingering magical constructs that still patrolled the ancient castle proper while magic existed. It truly was a different world during the War of the Magi, and one I am glad remains locked away beneath the waves.
Now, the Crawler has no such magical defenses. But I believe the Crawler was the original basis from which the Figaro Lizard was created. They both have similar abilities and appearance, right down to my own resonance with their hallucination-inducing venom. This strange substance causes the victim to weaken considerably in strength, but without any of the usual signs of poison. During an especially close encounter with the creature I was inflicted with this venom myself, and to my surprise I came away from the experience with the ability to duplicate its effects perfectly as Blue Magic. I have called this ability Dischord, and it has proved one of the few positive things I have uncovered about these menaces. It is this shared venom, identical under examination, that has led me to claim the beasts share a common origin, and that clues to the Crawler's origins can be discovered by studying the history of the Figaro Lizard.
Another clue to the lost story of the Crawler is that no man had ever seen a Crawler before the Collapse, and yet they are one of the most common threats to travelers of our new landscape, and were common enough to be used as a template for the ancient Figaro Lizard. This means, to me, that in the past Crawlers were quite common beasts. What happened between the ancient past and now that forced the Crawlers to hide away deep underground for a thousand years is a mystery still. The only clue I have is a single statement left in Maduin's text, An Esper's Compendium of Magical Beasts:
"The Crawler, as this plague-worm has come to be known, poses a serious threat to the stability of our new world. Ever since they crawled out from the ether-infused muck of the Jidorikan mud, they have caused nothing but destruction and mayhem. This squirming chaos continues to spread to every corner of our world virtually unchecked. We few who have natural protection against the Crawler's formidable and unnatural abilities have decided to rid the world of them once and for all. If our plan succeeds, in just three generations the Crawler will invade the surface world no more, and be left to its own devices in the sightless underworld it came from."
Whatever Maduin's plan was, it must have succeeded, and for that I give my thanks. It is up to the few of us in the present that are capable of combating the creature effectively to continue the work of past warriors, and rid our new world of the Crawler menace. The loss of magic seems to have weakened their desire to come to the surface, but their numbers are still at dangerous levels. A single concentrated effort to eradicate them like that of the past is what is needed to stem their tide of mindless destruction. I have discussed wide-reaching plans of extermination with King Edgar, Cid, and Setzer, and they all agree that proper application of modern technology can more than make up for the lack of magic and Espers we now find ourselves burdened with. It is my hope that these three great mechanical minds of our world can bring about the permanent solution to this crawling horror that our magical predecessors were unable to find. I may not be alive when their plan is put into action, but I believe and hope, as I always have, in the power of mankind to solve even the worst problems of our world.
(Note from Cid: I am happy to report that at the time this bestiary was compiled and made available to the public, several years after Strago's death, we were successfully able to resolve the Crawler threat for good. No more will the world suffer from these nightmares from another time and place. The Crawler is dead.)